It may be an American dream come true – for a majority in the world, this is a nightmare become reality.

Tuesday night, I was one of two in the group who were not certain Clinton would win. The others simply did not believe us. “The guy should have is head sorted out – surely voters realise this? He belongs in a psychiatric ward”, one person piped up.

“All the things he accused Clinton of, he’s done himself and on a far, far grander scale! It’s not just his remarks about women. It’s not just bullying. It is fraud, corruption, illegal deals and actions and worse”, someone else pointed out. “It’s because he’s a man and she’s a woman, he gets away with it all!”, added another.

“He should have been convicted and jailed decades ago. Surely people realise this? Surely, voters will not fall for this idiot?”

Once home, I watched some telly and then went to bed. The alarm went off at 6. By then my US friends were slowly coming to terms with the dreadful outcome.

Reading an English translation of “In Europe” by Dutch writer Geert Mak, I came across a sentence by Vera Britain. She wrote it on the eve of WWI, over a century ago. To paraphrase it: within a day, we have been set back over a century.

Instead of soothing classical music, opinions of interviewees could be heard on the radio. A female mayor of a mayor city said the result was “enough to make one vomit”. This summed up things pretty nicely: the sheer stupidity is nauseating.

A radio news bulletin stated the Canadian immigration website was down: too many Americans seeking refuge. This came as no surprise. In Canadian border regions, estate agents had been reporting a boom in property sales since well before summer. Americans who did not want to run the risk of ending up in Trump-land, had been buying up Canadian property. Their pockets are lined, so they will be most welcome refugees.

Zapping across the available national and international tv stations, I settled on the Belgian VRT broadcast as the most level-headed one with the least number of pics and videos of the next family going to occupy what will become the House of Horrors.

Belgian analysts stated the markets were down in the red, but the chaos was not as bad as they had feared. I for one, will sell all American related shares for a start. I refuse to invest in Trump-land and am also willing to change banks.

The result was devastating to the majority of people and media. Apparently, nobody had seen this coming. A few people going to or returning from the USA were interviewed at Zaventem Airport. None was positive; plenty disbelieving at first, which turned into sheer shock.

Someone from Florida mentioned the gulf between groups there. He was gloomy about any possibility of the great gap being smoothed over. Trump simply was not the right person for anything.

In the meantime, Geert Wilders had already congratulated Trump. Ms Le Pen will undoubtedly follow suit, as will the rest of all obnoxious politicians the world over. For these election results are Putin’s and a great many other loathsome leaders’ very, very wet dreams come true. The US’ democratic system has coughed up an American version of Hitler: congrats!

But the worst certainly is, what this election circus has made perfectly clear: America’s pecking order. It’s white guys first, white guys foremost, the occasional coloured man tolerated – and no place nor chance for women beating this system and becoming President of the US.

This is a personal tragedy for Hillary Clinton. It is a drama for her team , Obama, the Democratic party, its voters and supporters. Worse: Trump and his ogres simply are not what the world needs right now.

Like many people, I presumed that if Hillary made it into the White House, perhaps Michelle Obama might follow – or one of the other highly intelligent, caring and extremely capable female American leaders. Instead we ended up in a nightmare which has set all of us back centuries.